The piece you're hearing made from chopped up recordings on cassette tape

is 1965's It's Gonna Rain by Steve Reich,

the first strange step in a career that would revolutionize classical music.

Do you remember the first person you showed it's going to rain?

Yeah, it was a girlfriend at the time.

And she came over and she said, she looked at me, wide-eyed and said, wow.

And I considered that was a rave review, and that was good.

You know, all set.

You're listening to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service.

I'm Alice de Shuttleworth, and this episode is dedicated to a composer who has helped shape the last century of music, Steve Reich.

Born in New York in 1936, in the 60s, Reich pioneered minimalism, a radical new style of music focused on repetition,

pulses and shifting rhythms. Originally experimenting with audio tape, he translated those ideas to

orchestral instruments, creating masterpieces like 1976's Music for 18 musicians. he then embraced digital sampling techniques to place

cut-up recordings of people and objects at the centre of groundbreaking classical pieces,

like 1995's City Life. Still working at the age of 88, Reich has not only defined the latest

era of classical music, his pieces performed all over

the world, but had a seismic impact on pop, rock and electronica, talked about by many of

contemporary music's most influential figures, from Icelandic star Bjork to British artists,

like Brian Eno, Apex Twin, and Radiohead.

He's taking me back to the experience of building some of his greatest works in the studio to mark 60 years of the piece that started everything. It's going to rain.

I wondered if you could start by taking us back to that original speech recording that formed the basis for this piece.

And what struck you about the words here and the way they were delivered?

...